Brazilian authorities point to Russian biologist Kyrill Kravchenko as an international wildlife trafficker. They had been monitoring him since 2017, after he was arrested in the Netherlands with rare wildlife from Brazil in his possession. In mid-January this year, as he tried to board a plane to Russia at São Paulo’s international airport, they intercepted […]
Tag: deforestation
Meet the kitten-sized, clown-faced monkey that’s leaping toward extinction
I’ve been writing about wild things for more than 10 years, and while there are many animals I don’t know, I thought I’d at least heard of most of the world’s primates: monkeys, lemurs and apes. And then a conservationist sent me a photo of a buffy-headed marmoset (Callithrix flaviceps). My response: Holy bananas, what […]
The insect apocalypse: ‘Our world will grind to a halt without them’
Ihave been fascinated by insects all my life. One of my earliest memories is of finding, at the age of five or six, some stripy yellow-and-black caterpillars feeding on weeds in the school playground. I put them in my empty lunchbox, and took them home. Eventually they transformed into handsome magenta and black moths. This […]
Philippines’ rich bird life is more threatened than we thought, study says
The Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands, supporting an extraordinary number of species that occur nowhere else on the planet. Eighty-six new endemic bird species have been described in the Philippines in just the last decade — more than all avian endemics ever recorded in either China or India. Nevertheless, the country’s […]
‘So enigmatic’: injured sloth inspires rescue centre in Venezuela
It is almost a year to the day that Haydée and Juan Carlos Rodríguez first spotted an injured sloth lying by the side of the road while they were out on a drive. In an attempt to cross from one tree to another in the Venezuelan town of San Antonio de Los Altos, near Caracas, […]
Tiger habitat threatened by Malaysian royals’ mining plans
An environmental report has revealed the Malaysian royal family is requesting permission from the Department of Environment for a new iron ore mine in the middle of one of the few remaining habitats of 15 threatened animals, including the critically endangered Malayan tiger. The proposed project involves the deforestation and excavation of 60.75 hectares (150 […]
Lear’s macaws threatened by planned wind farm in Brazil, experts warn
Conservationists in Brazil have raised alarms about the impact of a wind farm being built in a region that’s the last stronghold of the endangered Lear’s macaw. French renewable energy developer Voltalia has started construction of the facility in Canudos, in the northeastern state of Bahia. It will install 28 turbines for the first stage […]
Deforestation of orangutan habitat feeds global palm oil demand, report shows
JAKARTA — A major palm oil company supplying to global brands like Nestlé and PepsiCo continues to source the raw commodity from plantations responsible for deforesting prime orangutan habitat in Sumatra, according to a recent investigation. U.S.-based environmental advocacy group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has found Singapore-based conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) allegedly buying palm […]